Nicole Miller Resort Goes to Bali (Fashion Wire Daily)

New York - Even if you cant make it to Bali next winter, picking up a few pieces from Nicole Millers Resort 2009 collection, which she presented in New York on Wednesday, June 11, would be your next best option.

Millers colorful collection of resortwear took its inspiration from traditional Balinese prints, which she applied to crinkled silk tops, sarongs, swimwear and dresses, punching up the colors along the way with bright, fruit-flavored colors.

Miller said when she was in St. Barts last winter, she had brought a mostly white wardrobe to wear. But when she arrived, she didnt feel like wearing white - she wanted to wear something more colorful. Her assistant had been on a trip to Bali and brought back all kinds of colorfully printed fabrics and traditional clothing. "Thats what I should have worn in St. Barts!" said Miller.

"All the men wear sarongs that have these checker prints, so it looks like a mismatch, but actually its not," said Miller about a colorful printed silk dress with checker ruffles extending from the dress.

Not all the pieces were a literal reference to the traditonal Balinese garb. In other pieces, the prints were used abstractly, as in a jersey dress with a patchwork version of the swirling, cloud-like print used elsewhere in the collection.

The focus with her resort offerings, like many other designers, was on light-as-air, comfortable fabrics - in Millers case, silk.

"Im always trying to reinvent silk fabrics," she said. The collection uses silk in a variety of ways, from the fabric she calls "ripstop," a kind of textured silk similar to a parachute, to silk georgette, to a cotton/silk blend that gives a cotton skirt, for example, and added dose of softness and effervescence.

Balancing out the loose, unstructured tops and dresses were skinny jeans and stretch linen shorts for layering underneath. If youre city-bound rather than sipping mid-winter tropical drinks, its a good way to stay warm while still imagining youre on an island.